Fast Paced

This essay-style short story, published in 1943, is a sequel to the earlier work Going Home (1943). The protagonist, who his family has disowned, receives news that his mother is dying and heads back to his family home with his wife and child. He is the sixth son of a wealthy family from Aomori. He went to Tokyo Imperial University with the hopes of his family, but became involved in left-wing movements, was arrested by the police, became addicted to drugs, and repeatedly attempted suicide. Dazai is aware that he has been a bad son to his mother and that her death is imminent. He also has ...

Pretending to be in love with a fae prince is easy. But what happens when the fairy tale feels dangerously real? Tessa’s injury ended her mountain biking career and broke her heart. But now a magic portal has sent her into a world of eerie creatures, haunted ruins, and a devastatingly handsome fae prince. Prince Ademar is unwillingly betrothed to the heir of a distant realm, so he makes Tessa an offer. If she disguises herself as a princess, he promises to sneak her home again through the portal. All she has to do is fool a palace full of fae royals with sharp wits and sharper blades. But...

Deadly. Ruthless. Eighteen. Bent on murder. Despite not being old enough to drive, Rose was easily the most skilled assassin in Eva Santella’s Italian boot camp. But then Rose decided to leave that life behind and spent her teen years playing soccer and chess and lying on the beach in Barcelona. The Sultan took all that away. When he killed her boyfriend on the night she turned 18, Rose made a vow that either she would kill The Sultan or die trying. At that moment, she knew despite her best efforts to live a normal life, she was destined to be a killer. Now, after years of hunting The ...

Do you find yourself constantly asking your child to "pick up the pace"? Does he or she seem to take longer than others to get stuff done - whether completing homework, responding when spoken to, or getting dressed and ready in the morning? Drs. Ellen Braaten and Brian Willoughby have worked with thousands of kids and teens who struggle with an area of cognitive functioning called "processing speed" and who are often mislabeled as lazy or unmotivated.

The flight across the ocean was routine. The storm was not. When a state-of-the-art airliner is ripped from the sky by an impossible tempest, Captain Eva Rostova and a handful of survivors wash ashore on an uncharted island. The crash is only the beginning of their nightmare. They are not alone. Something is hunting them in the jungle—a silent, intelligent, and utterly alien predator that disabled their plane with chilling precision. As Eva struggles to keep the terrified passengers alive, she realizes their crash was no accident. They were brought here. But the greatest threat may not be...

The Rapture has occurred, America is devastated and the Islamic Messiah, the 12th Imam, is moving quickly to establish his ultimate control over the world. Soon all will be in place according to the plans of the Antichrist. As America attempts to recover from the trio of a nuclear explosion in the nation’s capital, an EMP attack on the electrical grid, and the disappearance of millions of people across the globe, over in Iran the Islamic messiah known as the 12th Imam takes advantage of the ensuing chaos. To consolidate his power, he quickly divides all the nations into ten distinct ...

When John Sutter's aristocratic wife killed her mafia don lover, John left America and set out in his sailboat on a three-year journey around the world, eventually settling in London. Now, 10 years later, he has come home to the Gold Coast, that stretch of land on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America, to attend the imminent funeral of an old family servant.

A beautiful but deadly serial killer is on the loose, dishing out gruesome and lethal punishment to men who reject her … When Rose arrives in Florida to meet her new love, she is stood up at the airport, but chalks it up to a misunderstanding. She soon learns there is more to her boyfriend’s disappearance than him going on a wild drinking bender. After a frustrating and ultimately fruitless search, Rose realizes he is being held against his will. Rose must risk everything to unravel the woman’s deadly plot before she once again loses the man she loves to a killer. Blood & Bone is the ...

What happens to a character when the story is over? Sunny Dae Grayson is about to find out. In a moment of profound loss and rage, Sunny destroyed her character, upending her story as an act of defiance. But the end of her narrative doesn't mean the end of her existence. Sunny finds herself in a mysterious new world inhabited by other characters whose tales have concluded. But this strange realm is dying, its life force ebbing away as their tales are forgotten. Determined to make a difference, Sunny teams up with Johnny Mountain, a fearless young adventurer, and Jackson Windstrom, a pensive...

This novel, written in 1949, was Osamu Dazai's last work and was unfinished upon his death. It is set in Tokyo just after the war's end. It tells the story of a handsome editor who wants to leave his mistresses and a black marketeer woman who has a thick voice, a big appetite, and great strength but is also stunningly beautiful. It is a cheerful, humorous, and unprecedented novel, so much so that it is hard to believe that it was written by a novelist who was so depressed that he was contemplating suicide. All the reader can do, however, is to imagine the rest of the novel. Annotations [1] ...

Previously Published as Mean Girls By: Elisa D. Daniels "A seemingly innocent scavenger hunt among four best friends turns deadly in the heart of Texas." Growing up in the small town of Texas, Allie, Darcy, Grace, and Hope have been inseparable since childhood. Now in their twenties, they continue to meet almost every Saturday night at their favorite club. Allie, Darcy, Grace, and Hope may have been friends, but each of them have their own secrets and struggles. Hope, the shy one of the group, has always felt like an outsider. When a disagreement forms between her and Allie, things take a ...

"Buckle up and put on your tinfoil hat for this journey, it's a masterfully-written five-star adventure full of fun, fear, and unexpected twists." –Bill Schweitzer, Doves in a Tempest Simon Elliot, a police officer, witnesses the kidnapping of three siblings from their unconscious parents. With no memory of how their children were taken, and their oldest son found dead in a crop circle in England, the family begs Simon to go abroad and continue his investigation. In England, Simon believes he is being watched. When acquaintances die while helping with his investigation, he knows he has ...

Survive. Win. Escape—Or Be Trapped Forever. Jax swore he was done with video games. He barely survived Battle Royale, escaped Spartan Arena, and promised himself he’d never get pulled into one again. But when a mysterious title, Shrimp Game, flickers on his screen, his TV has other plans. Before he can react, a surge of green energy yanks him back into another challenge—this time, with hundreds of other players, all fighting for survival. The rules? Win the games, or be trapped forever. As Jax and his fearless friend Skye navigate a series of high-stakes childhood challenges—where a...

Jax barely survived Shrimp Game once. But this time, he's not being dragged back—he's going in on purpose. He made a promise to save Skye. And he’s willing to risk everything to keep it. But Shrimp Game isn’t the same. The rules have changed. This time, it's the Championship. Every player is a past competitor—stronger, faster, and out for revenge. No rest. No second chances. No mercy. From Lights Out Tag to Dodgeball with no way out, Jax must outthink brutal rivals, survive crazy twists, and face challenges more dangerous than anything he's seen before. Can Jax find Skye and survive...

This short story was written by Osamu Dazai in 1939. Five siblings from a wealthy family - the eldest son is 28, the eldest daughter is 26, the second son is 24, the second daughter is 21, and the third son is 18 - create a story in relay format to pass the time. The story of an old mathematician begins to be told. As they all have different personalities and favorite books, the stories they create also show their individuality. The interactions between them are written in an attractive way. You can read it all at once and enjoy the unexpected twist at the end. As the work is written with a...

The gripping new action thriller novel from the #1 bestselling author of the Joe Hawke series and The Hunter Files. JED MASON RETURNS! Ex-soldier and MI6 operative Jed Mason is the ultimate reluctant hero. He is a man who wants nothing more than to leave his old life of killing behind and start over on his Portuguese olive farm, but trouble follows him everywhere like a shadow. Usually big trouble. Then Boston University's Dr Holly Hope gives him a call and asks for his help. She tells him their mutual friend Wesley Baxter, a private investigator from Los Angeles, was hired by a senator's ...

A city of ancient secrets. A killer enacting centuries-old vengeance. A reporter who is the final target. Disgraced investigative journalist Griffin Pike is chasing ghosts. Broke and desperate, he returns to his hometown of St. Augustine to cover a story that feels like a godsend: a bizarre, ritualistic murder at the heart of the city’s oldest monument, the Castillo de San Marcos. The victim is posed, the crime is theatrical, and the killer has a taste for history. As the bodies stack up, each murder more brutal and symbolic than the last, Griffin is pulled deep into a conspiracy that ...

An hilarious, feel good comedy starts when Sadie Braithwaite, single handedly bringing up her gruesome twosome teenagers, Josh and Lucinda, finds that the empty house next door has finally sold. Who is her mysterious new neighbour? Sadie is desperate to find out. How will she react when she finds out the shocking truth of who has moved next door? That's not the only change in Sadie's life. An amazing job offer promises an escape from her low paid job as a carer for the elderly. Should she take it? Or is she signing up to something she would later regret? New Neighbours on Lavender Lane is ...

He doesn’t want a woman. He needs her. When Lila gets lost in the woods during a solo hiking trip, she stumbles upon a remote mountain cabin—and the massive, brooding man who lives there alone. Beau hasn’t spoken to another soul in years, but the moment he sees her, something primal snaps loose inside him. She’s not just a visitor. She’s his reward. His possession. His prize. Beau takes one look at the curvy, shivering beauty and knows he’ll never let her go. When he finds out she’s untouched? He becomes unhinged. The world can’t have her. The cold can’t touch her. Only he...

After a spate of inexplicable incidents, the tradesmen refurbishing a former Roman Catholic orphanage refuse to continue work. Desperate for a solution, the project manager accepts the help of paranormal investigator Malachi Hunter and his team. Even in broad daylight, the entities that infest the Victorian building overwhelm the ghost hunters with paranormal activity on an unprecedented scale. As the team attempt to deal with the haunting, former MI5 agent Adam Ross is pursuing his mission to find how information about the Fall—secret gateway to the Summer Lands—has persisted into ...